Bush’s ban on unions at Justice serves no purpose, union says

President Bush's decision to exempt certain Justice Department offices from a labor law is "bizarre" and the result of bad advice from his subordinates, argues a lawyer for the largest federal employees' union. On Jan. 7, Bush issued an executive order exempting five Justice Department offices from union representation for national security reasons. The New York Times reported this week that White House officials said the executive order was necessary to prevent union contracts from restricting, through strikes or other means, the ability of Justice agencies to do their work. But Title 5, Sec. 7311 and Title 18, Sec. 1918 of the U.S. Code already prohibits federal employees from participating in strikes against the government.

"Either the President's advisers are totally ignorant of these fundamental laws, or they deliberately falsified the rationale for the President's actions," said Phil Kete, general counsel at the American Federation of Government Employees, on Tuesday. Kete said the executive order "reflects negatively on the advice that President Bush is being given by his subordinates." Neither the White House nor the Justice Department returned calls on the matter. The decision affects more than 500 employees in the National Central Bureau of Interpol, Justice's criminal division, the National Drug Intelligence Center, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and the 93 U.S. attorneys' offices across the country. The offices included in the order are responsible for carrying out intelligence and investigative activities related to national security. According to Kete, the existing relationship between AFGE and the U.S. attorneys' offices has not disrupted the government's ability to carry out investigations related to national security. "AFGE has represented people in the U.S. attorneys' offices, in some cases, for more than 20 years," he said. "Not once has any U.S. attorney suggested that this representation made it more difficult, much less made it impossible, to carry out the national security tasks of the office."